Many many Christmases ago, my mom gifted me with a monster of a cookbook called The New Best Recipe. I can't claim to remember what we made from it first, although odds are it was these cookies. We do have something of a habit of making cookies together over the holidays. Whatever the recipe, it turned out so well mom wanted the cookbook for her own collection. Given the weight of this cookbook and the fact that I was flying back to upstate NY with limited space, buying and shipping a second copy to myself worked out pretty well for everyone.
I've made a lot of chocolate chip cookies in my life, but ever since trying this recipe for chewy chocolate chip cookies, it's the only one I've used. For over a decade. I usually have a difficult time following any recipe more than once because there are so many recipes in the world and I want to try them all. However, I've had a lot of time to consider, and the definitive answer to "what is the best chocolate chip cookie?" and "how do I make chewy chocolate chip cookies?" is this recipe. The grass is not greener on the other side. This is the one recipe everyone should use. Cook's Illustrated discovered that an extra egg yolk, a ⅔ brown : ⅓ white sugar ratio, and copious amounts of butter would yield the tenderest, chewiest, most perfect chocolate chip cookie possible. I've modified the recipe a teeny bit from the original instructions, by letting the butter cool first, adding a bit more flour, not bothering with the break-in-half-then-reform step (extensive testing indicated no difference, neither visible nor gustatory), and doubling their original recipe. 
I took a food tour around Greenwich Village for a friend's 30th birthday and one of our stops was a pretty famous cookie shop (at least at the time). As they do on food tours, we all got a sample of the giant chewy chocolate chip cookies that made them famous. After taking a bite, one of my friends, who isn't well-known for his tact, loudly exclaimed "Katrina's cookies are way better". It's not just Antek though. Friends' relatives know me because of these cookies. I've never encountered a single person who doesn't love these cookies. Make these and make new friends.
Fortunately for everyone, these chewy chocolate chip cookies are super simple to make. They do require a little advance planning to melt and cool the butter, but it's easy enough to hasten the process if you must have cookies now. Just cream your butter and sugars, add the wet ingredients, add your dry ingredients in two stages, mix in your chocolate chips of choice, portion and bake. These also freeze spectacularly well, so I'll often bake half a batch and freeze the rest for unexpected company. Or a bad day. Or because I read online that you can waffle cookie dough. It's true, you can.... but then you get crispy cookies.
Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 24 tablespoons (3 sticks) unsalted butter melted and cooled at room-temperature until completely re-solidified*
- 2 cups (440 g) light brown sugar firmly packed
- 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs ideally at room temperature
- 2 large egg yolks ideally at room temperature
- 4 teaspoons (14 g) vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
- 4 ½ cups (640 g) unbleached all-purpose flour
- 2 cups (12 oz) chocolate chips semisweet, dark, bittersweet, milk chocolate, or a mix
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325 F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper, then set it aside.
- Cream the butter and sugars together at medium speed for 3-5 minutes, until fluffy and lighter in color.
- Add the eggs, egg yolks, and vanilla. Beat at medium-low speed until just incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl.
- Add the salt, baking soda, and 2 cups of the flour, mix at low speed until just barely incorporated. Scrape down the sides again.
- Add the remaining flour, mix at low speed until just barely incorporated. There should still be a few streaks of flour, these will disappear when you mix in the chocolate chips.
- Gently fold in the chocolate chips.
- Using a ¼ cup measure or an ice cream scoop for large (2.8 oz) cookies**, scoop dough and place it onto your prepared sheet pan. Leave at least 2 inches between dough balls, as these will spread out.
- Bake for about 17-19 minutes, rotating 180 degrees halfway through baking. The cookies should look puffed up and golden brown around the edges.
- Cool the cookie sheet on a metal cooling rack for at least 10 minutes, then enjoy!
Notes
**For smaller cookies, use a 4-cm ice cream scoop, which should yield dough balls weighing roughly 1 ¼ oz. Bake these for 14 minutes. If you want to save the cookie dough for later, it is best to form the dough balls immediately after making the dough and refrigerate (5 days) or freeze them (3 months) until ready to bake. If you don't, the dough while harden in the fridge, making scooping quite challenging. Just remove the pre-formed dough from the fridge or freezer and place them on the cookie sheet while the oven is preheating.
Nutrition
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